church

Growing up my mom would take me to church every sunday. Every sunday it was a battle. I was terriffied of church. One day as my mom was fighting to get me into the car she asked why i didn't want to go to church so badly (i had started crying), i told her i was afraid of the bells because I thought they were made by ghosts.

Anon

When we went to confession we were supposed to say the Act of
Contrition, which began with the words, "Oh my God, I'm heartily
sorry for having offended thee." I thought the words were "hardly sorry"
and I didn't understand why I had to confess if I was hardly sorry. (And I
usually WASN'T sorry!)

Kathy

When I was little, a friend of the family took me to her Catholic church with her. Never having seen a crucifix before (Jewish here), I thought it was real. Not real, as it 'the statue actually exists for you to look at' but real as in 'it is what it appears to be and it's happening right now' real. I couldn't figure out why someone was suffering horribly and no one was doing anything but celebrating a mass of something.

Then came communion. 'This is my body,' or something like that was said. I asked the family friend if who was talking and she said that it was from Jesus, the person in the front of the room. I thought that the guy in black was cutting parts off from the feet and feeding it to everyone. I asked the family friend if it was because Jesus had been naughty. 'No, he was very, very good' was the response.

Uhhh...'Am I a bad girl?' I asked. 'No, you are a very good girl.'

A few seconds passed while I mulled it over. I ended up screaming bloody murder and ran out of there so fast I almost fell into the thing with the holy water in it.

Anon

I was the only non catholic student at my catholic primary school and believed that since I was not catholic if I was to touch holy water to my forhead my finger would burn right through my skin into my brain.

Jenny

When we would sing songs at church, they displayed the lyrics on a projection screen by using a classroom styled projector with transparencies. Naturally, when the the person in charge would move or change the transparencies, the shadow of their hand would appear on the screen. Not being aware of the projector, I assumed that the large hand I saw clearly was the hand of God.

Katrina

When I was a kid, I believed that bible school was "beauty school", and called it that all the time.

Dana

When I was a little Catholic girl, I knew there were Catholic schools and public schools, so I thought there were two religions, Catholic and "public." When I met a new friend, I asked her, "Are you Catholic or public?" As you can imagine, that got me strange looks.

Anon

I went on a date once with a religious Jewish man. He told me that as a little boy, it never bothered him that he could eat only kosher food, and not, say, at McDonalds, because all the non-Jews who ate at McDonalds weren't allowed to eat kosher food. Fair is fair.

When he found out that HE was limited to kosher food and THEY could eat kosher AND non-kosher, he felt really cheated. (But he still keeps kosher.)

Sarah

My sister used to believe that nuns didn't have feet, she went to Catholic school and thought the nuns floated along (they wore long black habits then), she was very surprised when a young nun joined a jump rope game and she was her springing off FEET!

Karen D

At my Catholic school I was often told that Jesus was always present in the Church. I believed that the actual body of Jesus was kept in the altar. I thought one church kept it for a while then sent it to another church.

Anon

I thought you were supposed to take money out of the collection at church.

Wangchuk

I used to believe that when they served communion at church, it was because the service was so long that they had to supply a snack for everyone. My parents finally explained the truth about communion to me after I boldly walked to the usher and grabbed a whole handful of the cracker/wafers. After all...I was hungry!

Jessica

When I was a kid I had a friend who was episcopalean (spelling?) I always thought he was saying "Popsicle Aien." For that reason, I thought he was cool, and we became friends. There was something about building tree houses with an alien that fascinated me!

Curtis

I used to think that the "Father, Son and holy spirit" was the "Father, Son and holy speaker" so when ever i saw black stereo speaker i thought it was the holy spirit.

Anon

I used to think that a mosque was a place where mosquitoes live.

Anon

when I was little my parents would still go to church every week and i would go with them so then when we had communion I was more than a little confusee witht the concept of the body and the blood of christ but i let it go as i was quite happy to get something to eat. Then shortly after I couldn't sleep 1 night and went down stairs to find my teenage brother waching a tv programme and he let me stay up and watch it 2. The tv programme happened to be on cults and the part that really stuck out to be was a section on cannabilism after which i quickly went to bed and cried myslelf to sleep. The next day I stayed in at break and told my teacher that my parents had made me join a cult and eat a person :) OOOhhh that was a strange call my parentss got from the school

Alee

I used to believe that if you didn't go to church enough the nuns would trap you by doing cartwheels all around you.

Anon

I went to preschool in the basement of a church in my earlier years, so every day we would learn a little about God or Moses or another Bible story. Every day we were told 'God is watching!'
One day at snack time, we were all sitting at 'The Big Table' (there were around 30 of us) and at one end, there was a big platter with apples on it. On my side of the table, there was a plate of cookies. Ine of the teachers warned us,
"Only one apple each, God is watching!"
I took a piece of paper and wrote (I had just learned how to spell and sound out words recently):
'Tak az meni cookyz az yu want. Godz waching tha appls.'
I put it on the cookie plate and everyone started eating the cookies. I was scolded by one of the teachers but got to keep the note as a keepsake.

Marshmello Da Strawberry Cow

When I was little, my sunday school would tell us God was always watching. I would always insist my mom hold a towel in front of me while I was on the toilet, because I didn't want God to see me pee.

Nicole

I was raised Catholic but just couldn't understand the whole Confession thing when I became old enough to go. My catechism teacher and I had the following discussion.

Me: So I tell the priest what I did, he gives me a penance, and I'm forgiven?
Teacher: Yes
Me: But God already knows what I did, right?
Teacher: Yes
Me: So if I wasn't REALLY sorry for what I did, God would know, right?
Teacher: Yes
Me: But the priest wouldn't know if I wasn't sorry at all, would he?
Teacher: No, he wouldn't.
Me: So if the priest doesn't know if I'm sorry or not but God does, then how am I forgiven just for saying 3 Hail Mary's?
Teacher: Go sit down.

V.